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Apple Keelhauls Music Streaming Services
Feb 16, 7:42AM
Lots of hullabaloo about Apple's iOS subscription product. The basics - everyone pays 30%, you can't charge more on the iPhone for the product than you do on other platforms, and you can't link out from the app to the browser to handle subscriptions without Apple being in the middle. It's not even clear that apps will be able to just post a message telling people to create an account from their computer and then come back to their iPhone and use the app. That's all well and good for apps that have zero marginal costs. But for some content providers, specifically the music streaming services like MOG, Rhapsody, Rdio, etc., this is crushing. It effectively pushes them off the iPhone, iPad and other iOS devices. They've been keelhauled. That's because they don't have 30% margins to begin with, the labels and publishers take somewhere around $8 of the $10 subscription fee. We saw Rhapsody balk at Apple earlier today. On Wednesday morning, we hear, most of the online music streaming services will be issuing a joint statement condemning the policy.
Paperless Billing Service Doxo Raises $10 Million In Series B Funding
Feb 16, 5:00AM
Paperless billing is one of those things that is slower to take hold than it should, but it just seems inevitable that is how we all will be receiving our bills sooner or later. One startup trying to speed along the paperless era is Doxo, which just raised a $10 million. The Series B financing was led by Sigma Partners, with previous investors Mohr Davidow and Bezos Expeditions participating. Thomas Layton, the former CEO of OpenTable from 2001 to 2007, also invested and is joining Doxo's board of directors. Greg Gretsch from Sigma is also taking a board seat. This round brings the total raised by Doxo to $15 million since it was founded in 2008. As I described the service last year:
Roqbot Is A Jukebox On Your iPhone
Feb 16, 4:26AM
Something unusual happened last Friday at Bar Basic here in San Francisco. When I walked in, the entire bar was fixated on on a screen above the bar, which displayed looked like a musical game but wasn't karaoke. The game? Roqbot, a unique iPhone app that allows you to yes, pick the music playing at a bar. Like a combination Pandora and traditional jukebox, Roqbot allows you to control the tunes without getting up from where you're sitting. The inspiration for Roqbot came when one of the co-founders got frustrated using the jukebox at a bowling alley -- Every time he had to walk across the bowling alley he would miss his turn. Roqbot, which shares the space with jukebox networks TouchTunes and eCast, is the first startup that I've seen experimenting with bringing social music to real life businesses like bars and cafes. Up until now plenty of people have deployed this concept for private settings, but no one has touched public because of the many challenges involved.
Want To Buy Into A Hollywood Movie? Now You Can
Feb 16, 3:29AM
A company called Audience Productions has filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and are selling $10/share preferred stock to people who want to invest in the movie they're creating. The movie is called "Lydia Slotnick Unplugged": "Lydia Slotnick Unplugged" is a comedy about an up and coming executive at a hip music TV network. When Lydia's dream job becomes available, it's a toss up between her and a skater-punk named Gator. Their boss favors Gator because he's worried that Lydia's lost her edge. So, Lydia decides to prove that she's still got it by revealing the gritty story of her idol, legendary 70s rocker, Graham McGuiness. Graham has spent the past 30 years in a fog of alcohol and self-pity. He's trying to find that elusive lost chord to become successful again. In a frantic race to uncover Graham's past, Lydia learns an incriminating secret, which would make perfect material for a top-rated show. But she has to decide whether to use it to secure her promotion or destroy the evidence to save the reputation of her idol.
TechStars Network Wants One Startup Application To Rule Them All
Feb 16, 2:57AM
Applying to startup programs these days is a little like applying to colleges. There are so many of them, it is hard to decide which ones to try to get into. TechStars wants to streamline that process, at least for founders applying to any of the 20 or so accelerators in the TechStars Network. The TechStars Network was recently launched as part of the White House's Startup America initiative to spur entrepreneurship. TechStars wants to create a unified startup application for all the seed accelerators in the TechStars Network. This would be an online application which would allow entrepreneurs to apply to multiple startup programs within the network. Presumably the different accelerators would compete for the best candidates just as colleges compete for the best students. And startups that don't fit into one program may find a home in another with less friction.
The Simple (And Perhaps Harsh) Reality Of Apple's Ecosystem
Feb 16, 1:07AM
In my previous post about Apple's new subscription plans for the App Store, I offered up three possibilities. With the move, Apple is either: brilliant, brazen, or batsh*t crazy. But reading over the comments on that post (admit it, you did — it's okay, I do too, sometimes), you might think there was a fourth option: evil. To those who have followed tech news for any extended length of time, this is a familiar refrain. Company X changes something, therefore Company X is "evil". Over the years, this has been true of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc. But no company has seen this vitriol to the extent of Apple over the past few years. And curiously, it seems correlated to their meteoric rise in power and profitability. But if Apple is really evil — or at the very least, if several major moves they've made over the past few years have been evil — shouldn't the opposite be true? Shouldn't Apple be losing a ton of customers who are fed up with their cruelty and inhumane torture of developers, users, and the world in general? Makes sense, right?
Javelin Venture Partners Closes New $105 Million Fund
Feb 16, 12:54AM
Early-stage VC Javelin Venture Partners has closed a second, $105 million fund. The firm expects to use the money to fund around 20 companies over three years in seed and Series A rounds ranging from $500K to $3 million, and will reserve some of the funds for subsequent rounds raised by these portfolio companies. Javelin was founded by Noah Doyle and Jed Katz, both of whom have experience as entrepreneurs. Doyle founded online loyalty program MyPoints.com and was an executive at Keyhole (which was acquired by Google and became Google Earth). Katz founded Rent.net and Move.com. The firm initially got its start in May 2008, and then relaunched in April 2009 with a fund size of $75 million (it's now raised a total of $180 million).
Apple's Digital Newsstand Just Disrupted The Publishing Industry
Feb 16, 12:04AM
How much pricing power exactly does Apple have over publishers desperate to figure out a digital strategy that results in paying subscribers? A hell of a lot—at least that is what Apple is betting with its new subscription billing service. Apple is taking a 30 percent cut of all digital subscription revenues. Just take a moment to think about that for a second. Up until now, Apple took a 30 percent cut of one-time purchase of all apps in iTunes. So the 30 percent number doesn't seem strange, at least not to consumers. What do we care how the money is split up as long as we all of these digital goodies are affordable? But publishers and other media companies with subscription businesses (cough, Netflix, cough) care very much. Apple is saying if we deliver a paying customer, we will take 30 percent of their subscription dollars in perpetuity as long as they consume your media on our devices. 
New Micro-VC Lool Launches in Israel. Can Better Mentoring Boost the Country's Returns?
Feb 16, 12:00AM
Israel has had an amazing track record of producing startups and raking in returns-- better than most countries many times its size. The problem is the returns have fallen off dramatically in the last ten years as industries Israel excelled at have become mature. Meanwhile, it's failed to generate many big consumer Web hits, aside from MyHeritage and a few others. I've traveled to Israel several times and met dozens of entrepreneurs, investors and startup boosters. In my experience, there are generally two kinds of Israelis: Those who blindly talk up everything Israel, going rabid if you dare point out the obvious decline in returns, and those who have a clear grasp of the country's strengths and weaknesses and actively play to the strengths to combat the weaknesses. Yaniv Golan and Avichay Nissenbaum are the latter. 
Twitter Is Having A Bad Day: Bizarre "Blank Page" Is The New "Fail Whale"
Feb 15, 11:42PM
Notice that everything's seemed kind of unusually quiet in the blogosphere all day ? From lagging tweets to the emergence of the new "@anywhere boosh" blank screen ("Fail Whale without the Whale") error, it seems to me at least like the sundry unspecified Twitter issues on the loose this morning and afternoon are actually CAUSING a slow news day. While the lag time issue on the tweets was thankfully resolved a short while ago, users are still reporting the blank page error. The problems are affecting both the website and clients. Some 3rd party client users are also noticing interesting tweet crawling errors and the clients crashing altogether, like this random cluster of tweets at the bottom of a Tweetdeck search for tweets from "Mediagazer" performed by Atul Arora. It's unclear if all the problems are related.
WITN: Is Justin Bieber Why Lady Gaga Is Pantsless In Paris? [TCTV]
Feb 15, 10:33PM
Since AOL's acquisition of the Huffington Post, we know many of you have been looking for signs that TechCrunch has adopted our new editorial overlady's approach to SEO. This seems like as good a time as any to assure loyal Why Is This News? viewers that we will never - ever - stoop to such cheap linkbaiting tricks, no matter what financial incentives we're offered to do so. And so to this week's episode, where we talk about the impact of Justin Bieber - and his new movie, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (3D) - on social media and celebrity. Video below. Also, does anyone know what time the Superbowl starts?
Facebook Will Be Baked Into Dozens Of Mobile Devices This Year
Feb 15, 10:11PM
Late last year we broke the news about the upcoming Facebook Phone project, which sparked a media frenzy as the social network claimed this to be wrong, only to later admit that it did exist (the explanation being that there was no 'Facebook Phone', but that there are many Facebook Phones). Last week we got a video demo of one of these devices: the Android-based, INQ Cloud Touch. And today HTC announced its own Facebook-branded phones. But this is only the beginning. Today Facebook announced on its blog that we'll be seeing many similar integrations over the coming months: In addition to these new phones from INQ and HTC, you'll also be seeing similar deep Facebook integration on dozens of other devices over the course of this year.
Scan Bar Codes To Search Consumer Reviews In Store With SearchReviews
Feb 15, 9:57PM
In the same space as Buzzillions and Viewpoints, a new consumer review aggregator SearchReviews unveils itself today, allowing users to tailor searches to its over 40 million consumer reviews for over 4 million products from 1,011 retailers like ebay, Sephora, Walmart, Amazon and Zappos. User reviews are increasingly becoming akin to a form of UGC advertising and SearchReviews is attempting to take advantage of this by launching what is by far the largest searchable review hub available to consumers. SearchReviews is also available on iPhone and Android, allowing customers to access information about products in store with the scan of a barcode in addition to manual search. Curious in-store searchers can scan a code and/or look for the name of a product or service like a Canon Printer and drill down even further into specific attributes like star rating, source, location and specific key words with a tag cloud. You might find yourself confused without these further refinements as the quantity of reviews greatly outweighs the quality.
You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Book Is About You
Feb 15, 9:53PM
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned" - William Congreve
"And although there's pain in my chest / I still wish you the best with a / Fuck you" - Cee-Lo Green
Yesterday afternoon, I received a copy of 'Inside WikiLeaks' - Daniel Domscheit-Berg's tell-all book about his time working with Julian Assange. It's not hard to understand why Domscheit-Berg's publisher thought I might appreciate it: after all, I've made no secret of the fact that I hold Assange in low regard. If anyone's going to take pleasure from a no-punches-pulled hit-job on the world's most famous hypocrite, it's me, right? Wrong. Really wrong.
Top Prospect Connects with LinkedIn to Turn Your Talented Friends into Cash
Feb 15, 8:57PM
The American labor market is as schizophrenic as I've ever seen it. While the bulk of the country struggles with 9% unemployment, in Silicon Valley the ease of starting a new company and huge hiring goals of companies like Google and Facebook have lead to a war for talent that's driving up salaries and threatening the future of some smaller startups who just can't find people. The latter may seem like a good problem to have, but it's still a problem. And it's one most Valley companies are happy to throw money at if someone can come up with a tailored solution. We've written about a few companies trying to solve this through networking or reputation. Top Prospect is trying to solve it with good old fashioned cash: Companies will pay you at least $10,000 if you refer a friend who they wind up hiring. Eventually, Top Prospect will take a cut of that-- probably a hefty cut of up to 40%. But until March 1, it is giving successful matchmakers the whole amount. And some companies are willing to pay even more. Right now more than fifty companies have posted 180 jobs in the system with a whopping $2.5 million waiting to be paid to referrers.
What Do TMZ And The Daily Have In Common? Both Are Published On Crowd Fusion
Feb 15, 8:31PM
A couple weeks ago at the debut of The Daily, besides the press and bloggers a few tech CEOs associated with the project were also milling about. One of them was Brian Alvey, the founder of Crowd Fusion, a content management system (CMS) that launched at TechCrunch 50 in 2009 but has been pretty quiet since. Alvey's been busy signing up customers at large media sites. Both The Daily and celebrity gossip site TMZ, I've learned, are published on Crowd Fusion.
Philips Predicts LEDs Will Take 50 Percent Of Lighting Market By 2015
Feb 15, 8:13PM
Today, Philips announced that their Philips Ambient LED 12.5 watt light bulb — which gives off as much light as incandescent 60 watt bulbs, using less energy — attained Energy Star qualifications. It's the first LED light bulb of this type to gain approval in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsored program. Energy Star sanctioned products are usually eligible for utility rebate programs that can lower the cost of a product for consumers, while allowing a company to keep their margins strong. According to Philips, its bulb lasts 25 times longer and uses 80 percent less energy than the 60 watt incandescent bulb it was designed to replace. A company press statement reported that in order to obtain the Energy Star label, its LED bulb had to demonstrate a minimum light output of 800 lumens, a color temperature of 2700K (for soft white light), color rendering index (CRI) of 80 and a minimum three-year warranty; it actually offers 806 lumens, 2700K, a CRI of 80 and a six-year warranty. The bulbs are currently selling at Home Depot for $39.97. A Philips company representative told TechCrunch the bulbs are also recyclable. The lighting corporation wasn't issuing predictions about how much the Energy Star qualification would drive sales of its Ambient 12.5 watt bulbs. More macroscopically, however, Philips predicts LEDs will take 50 percent of the residential lighting market by 2015.
CashStar Raises $5 Million To Send You Gift Cards On Facebook
Feb 15, 7:59PM
Digital gifting platform CashStar has raised $5 million today in a Series B round lead by Passport Capital and Allen and Company. In the same space as BlackHawk, First Data, Gift Tango and Swag, CashStar offers SaaS and white-label solutions for big brands who want to implement digital gifting systems. With "ten times" as many customers as anybody else and partnerships with hundreds of retail brands including Starbucks, Coach, Williams Sonoma, Staples, Cheesecake Factory and The Gap, CashStar helps partners sell tens of millions in giftcards annually. It also offers an extensive range of gift card deployment options, including eGift cards, via Facebook and through your mobile phone.
Apple's Big Subscription Bet: Brilliant, Brazen, Or Batsh*t Crazy?
Feb 15, 7:56PM
We all knew it was coming, but the details of the App Store subscription model, which Apple outlined today, are fascinating on a number of levels. Simply put: this is one of the boldest bets Apple has ever made. And it could backfire. Or it could be huge beyond belief. Either way, it's going to be very controversial. We've already gone over the basics, but as a quick recap: any service offering an app with any sort of subscription component must now offer it within the app using the new in-app subscription options. Those companies are welcome to offer subscriptions outside of the app as well, but they must also have to option to do it in-app and it must be for the same price (or cheaper) than the out-of-app option. If a subscriber signs up in-app, Apple keeps 30 percent of those revenues. If they sign up outside of the app (still granting them accesses to the app), the company keeps 100 percent of the revenues.
Android Media Player doubleTwist Hits 1 Million Active Users
Feb 15, 6:40PM
Today, the Android media player doubleTwist reached a big milestone: 1 million active users between its mobile and desktop apps. We've been following the media player closely for over a year now, watching to see if it would find enough adoption to make it the premiere Android alternative to iTunes. Back in November, the company launched its wireless syncing software called "AirSync" that automatically syncs your music, movies, and photos whenever you're in wireless range -- and offers us a glimpse into the future of mobile tech.
Keen On… Sherry Turkle: Alone Together in the Facebook Age (TCTV)
Feb 15, 6:25PM
While yesterday's interview with MIT's Sherry Turkle focused on the arrival of the Robotic Moment, today's is about Turkle's pessimistic view of social media. In today's age of the social, we are all becoming adolescents, she told me when she came into our San Francisco studio earlier this month. "Just because we grew up with the Internet doesn't mean the Internet is grown-up," the MIT Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology darkly warned. "In intimacies, new solitudes," Turkle argues in her new book, Alone Together. In the social age of Facebook ubiquity, she explained to me, we have to fight Mark Zuckerberg's incessant promotion of transparency and reclaim privacy. The alternative, she warns, is perpetual adolescence and superficiality – a condition that will have a tragically destructive impact on both our intimate relationships and upon our democracy. Video ahead.
Secretary Clinton: The Internet Has Become The World's Town Square
Feb 15, 5:45PM
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the stage at George Washington University today to address 'Internet Freedom' and ways that the U.S. can ensure free internet access around the world. You can watch a live video of the speech on Facebook here. The announcement is timed with the measures taken by the Egyptian government to restrict internet access to citizens during the massive protests against the Mubarak regime. Much of the organization of the initial protests and rallies in Egypt took place over Twitter and Facebook over the past few weeks. Clinton, who previously called on former Egyptian president Mubarak unblock social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, said that Egypt did not want the world to watch or witness what was taking place in the country. She drew similarities to the protests in Iran last year, where the internet and cellphone access were also shut down by the government.
Fly or Die (TV Apps): IntoNow, Yap.TV, FIOS Mobile
Feb 15, 4:59PM
Once you start watching TV with your iPhone or iPad, there is no going back. When the big screen becomes boring, you just switch to the smaller screen, where a whole world of Twitter, email, the Web, and apps stand ready to entertain your multitasking mind. In this week's episode of Fly or Die, CrunchGear editor John Biggs and I look at three TV apps designed to enhance your TV watching experience, not distract you from it. We give each one a "fly" or "die" verdict and, as usual, a founder from one of the companies joins us as a surprise guest to subject themselves to our grilling. The three TV apps we evaluate in this show are IntoNow, Yap.TV, and FIOS Mobile. The first one, IntoNow, is like Shazam for TV shows. It lets you check into a show you are watching by simply listening to the audio signature of the show and comparing that agaianst its database. The app has a high gee-whiz factor, and it really nails identifying the shows with one click. But there is not much to do after that other than see what shows your friends on the app have watched and leave a comment about their bad taste in TV shows.
eBay Lands First Mobile Pre-Load Deal With Telefonica's O2 UK Phones
Feb 15, 4:58PM
eBay's mobile reach in Europe is about to expand exponentially. The e-commerce giant has just announced it first ever mobile pre-load deal with Telefonica, which will equip most smartphones and feature phones sold by the Telefonica via its O2 brand with eBay's mobile app or a link to eBay's mobile page pre-loaded. The company says the deal will include most Android, Windows 7, Symbian and Bada devices sold by O2 in the UK over the next two years. Telefonica will actually work with device manufacturers to pre-install the application.
Valve Makes More Money Per Employee Than Google Or Apple
Feb 15, 4:25PM
Here's an interesting figure: Valve makes more money per employee than Google or Apple. While we can easily figure out how much the publicly traded Google and Apple make per employee, estimating what Valve pulls in is trickier. Valve has done quite well selling video games - over 12 million copies of Half-Life 2 alone - but Valve is even better at selling everyone else's games - not just its own - in Steam.
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